Recoletos & Plaza de Colón: the literary promenade
A grand café with a literary past, the national library, and the gardens at Colón. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Plaza de Cibeles and the start of Recoletos
Begin at the chariot fountain and walk north up the Paseo de Recoletos, the broad tree-lined boulevard that becomes the Castellana further on. The central walkway is the one to take — shaded, benched, and built for exactly this.

2. Gran Café de Gijón
The café that has fed Madrid's writers since 1888 — the old literary tertulia (a regular table of talkers) met here, and the marble-and-mirror room still trades on it. Take a coffee at the counter or a seat on the terrace under the trees. The price buys the room as much as the drink.

3. Biblioteca Nacional de España
The national library's vast neoclassical front, with the statues of Spanish writers on the steps. The grand staircase and the small museum inside are free; go up between the columns even if only to stand where Cervantes presides.

4. Jardines del Descubrimiento
The Discovery Gardens behind the library, a hard-edged 1970s plaza of raised concrete and three huge inscribed blocks marking Columbus's voyages. Stark rather than soft, but the scale is the experience — walk between the blocks.

5. Plaza de Colón
The square itself, with the Columbus column on its high pedestal and one of the largest Spanish flags in the country snapping overhead. Loud with traffic, grand in intent. Stand under the flag once, then step back into the gardens.

6. Paseo de Recoletos, the café terraces
Drop back south to the boulevard's garden kiosks and terraces under the planes — the open-air cafés Madrid sits at all summer. A drink here is the proper end before Colón Metro takes you on.

Recoletos & Plaza de Colón: the literary promenade